Q&A: The Superman Pharmacist Shares His Vision For Community Pharmacy

Mayank Amin, PharmD, RPh, MBA, is the owner of a community pharmacy that gained national attention for its innovative approach to health care delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic. Also known as The Superman Pharmacist, Amin shares his inspiring journey and enduring dedication to patient care in a recent interview with Drug Topics.

In the final part of his conversation on Over the Counter, Amin reflects on 5-years worth of learnings as owner and chief patient advocate at Skippack Pharmacy and offers candid perspectives on the future of community pharmacy. "Whoever wants to fight through these challenges that we're facing as pharmacy owners, or as the pharmacy profession, I think if we work together, we can reverse the way pharmacy is headed right now." he says.

Check out part 3 here.

Mayank Amin, PharmD, RPh, MBA: So, I had a whole bunch of other costumes and Superman was 1 of them. But at the pharmacy on any given day, I just started dressing up in costume. Forget about scrubs. Forget about the white coat. [I’m] just going to dress up in superhero costumes every single day. And people walk in, and you know, they might think that this place is odd. But they also knew that this place was not going to be normal when I opened it back up. So, it wasn't a surprise to people, but the word started getting out that there’s a pharmacy team that dresses up in superhero costumes, and they're doing all these great things for the community.

Pharmacist administering COVID-19 vaccine / Talia Mdlungu/peopleimages.com - stock.adobe.com

When the vaccines arrived, it was Super Bowl Sunday, February 7, 2021. I'll remember that date like it's my own wedding date. But that morning, I arrived to our pharmacy—and I posted on Facebook that night before saying, “Hey, we've gotten these vaccines. I know there's going to be a blizzard on Super Bowl Sunday and everyone's saying just cancel the clinic because it's dangerous to be out.” But I was like, I think it'd be a disservice. Like, there's people dying by the minute. For me not to get these vaccines in people’s arms [would be] bad. So, I was like, we'll go to the firehouse that we're holding this clinic at, and whoever comes comes, if not, we'll put the vaccines back in the fridge and use them the next day. So, I said, “[Is] anyone available to show up at the firehouse and come to the pharmacy to help?”

Amin in Captain America suit at Skippack

And I got to the pharmacy [and] there [were] already 2 or 3 people there at the pharmacy ready to help me. It's like 6 o’clock in the morning, and they're trying to figure out the mess of, you know, what do we need for the clinic? We've never had 1 before. What are the supplies, alcohol swabs—we had no clue what we were doing. But I was like, just [try] to go in the pharmacy, grab whatever you think we need, band aids and stuff off the shelves.

And at that time, I was getting ready to leave and they were still working on something, and the Superman costume was hanging on the back wall from that 1 time that I visited that child. And I asked them, I was like, “Guys, what do you think if I just put this costume on and went to the firehouse where we're having this clinic and just walked in dressed up as Superman with the vaccines in hand?” They’re like, “Dr. Mak, that would be stupid if you didn’t wear it. Just put it on.”

And they helped me put the costume on and I walked over to the firehouse. That's kind of [where] the viral image [came] of me walking as Superman and snow falling all around me and the cape flying behind me. And there were reporters from the Philadelphia Inquirer, and Reuters were there. And they shot a few images, which ended up being like the ones that kind of encouraged a lot more people to join our team. And it got the word to spread.

And the amazing thing about our clinics is that they spread messages of love and positivity. So, in a time of negativity, this costume fueled positivity. There hasn't been a single negative news story about our pharmacy, or the costume. Even people that don't prefer vaccines or didn't believe in the vaccines, they never came and protested the vaccines. If they had friends that believed in the vaccines, they would say, "Go to Superman’s pharmacy." That moment when I walked in, and all the seniors were waiting outside in the snow, it was like the scenes out of a movie from Hollywood. So, it brought me a memory from being on M. Night’s set, because some of the shots were set in snow scenes. And I was like, this is so magical to see the smiles on these seniors’ faces. And then after that, it just became my identity where I had to dress up in Superman. If I didn't, people would be like, “Who is this guy?” Like, “Where’s Superman?” if the costume didn't get put on.

Skippack Pharmacy patients holding front page of a newspaper featuring The Superman Pharmacist

And then as we moved along the COVID journey—that was just seniors—if it brought this much happiness to seniors, imagine what it did when we started doing children's vaccines at schools. And we turned our entire schools into, you could say, a concert or a party because I wanted to connect that aspect of experience from my wedding and event planning days into something where people wouldn't expect for there to be live musicians or princesses and Cinderellas and costume characters and magicians. That's what we turned our vaccine clinics into. You weren't just going to get your COVID vaccine. It was a party.

You know, we had companies like Coca Cola donating 20,000 bottles of Powerade. [Girl Scouts] donated 10,000 boxes of cookies. Like some of these things are just mind blowing. And it's simply an ask. One of the Coca Cola directors came to get a vaccine, and he's like, “Is there anything we can help with?” And I was like, “Sure you guys have any Powerade? I got 6000 people coming through the school. I'm sure they would love to get some kind of beverage after getting their vaccine, water or anything.” And they gave [them], [saying], “Where do you want us to send the truck?” And the truck arrived, and that was that.

Girl Scout cookies: some of the executives from the [Girl Scouts] came, because being 1 of the only places that had vaccines at the time, you're getting people from all over. You're getting players from the Philadelphia Eagles come to your pharmacy, you're getting celebrities that are part of movies, or radio hosts that are world renowned, coming to your pharmacy, because you're the 1 spot [open]. Even government officials were asking for vaccines for their own grandparents or their parents, because it wasn't available to anybody, no matter who you were. It was something that made me realize [that] you can have all the money in the world, but that's not getting you the vaccine. Everyone's on the same playing field of who's getting the vaccine, there were certain eligibility requirements.

Amin posing with Girl Scouts in front of Skippack Pharmacy

But throughout all this time of chaos, that costume brought light to our community. And it also allowed us to remember that even in times of chaos, you can still bring joy to people. And it served as a reminder to always be a servant to your community. We were able to push for a lot of our vaccine initiatives, or even just our community initiatives, by the—you know, at 1 point we were vaccinating homeless individuals. We had 1 phone call from a paralyzed woman [saying] nobody was willing to come to her house and she was 45 minutes from the pharmacy. I said, “We'll come to you.” Doesn't matter where you are. We're not leaving anyone behind, even if it's at 2 o'clock in the morning, and that's why for those couple of years, I don't remember where the time went.

We have so many memories captured in photo and videos. One day—and I keep saying this, but that 1 day is going to come soon—I'm going to make a documentary and a book about this, because there's just way too many stories. And while I was dressed up in the costume—just imagine 1 business owner surrounded by over 1000 volunteers. My story is unique, but it's the story of our volunteers that I'm going to be writing about, like, moms that gave up their full-time jobs to volunteer full time for a year, like you just don't hear about that.

Literally 1 of my patients had cancer, and she didn't tell anybody she had cancer because she didn't want us to tell her to stop vaccinating people [or ask her to] stay away from people because [she was] high risk. I didn't realize she had cancer until she passed away. She actually gave me 1 of my shots.

She would work as a nurse at an urgent care, local urgent care facility. And then after her work, she'd come to the pharmacy to help vaccinate as a volunteer. After working a gruesome 10-hour day she'd come. And she would do this multiple nights a week, and unfortunately, I ended up seeing that she passed away. I reached out to her husband, I was like, “I hope you know your wife would spend so many hours just vaccinating people in our community. And I don't know how she did all this.” And then at that point, he told me she had cancer, and she didn't want to tell anybody. But she was doing this while in so much pain, but she wanted to make a difference in someone else's life. So, the sacrifices I made [are] absolutely nothing compared to what my community did for each other.

And that's why we were on that 24/7 grind, just willing to do whatever possible to help people. And now, unfortunately, we just have that stuck in us. And so, no matter what the emergency is even post pandemic, we're here to help. Doctors’ offices, whoever has an issue, even government officials, they're still reaching out to us, [saying] “Hey, Dr. Mak, do you have any idea of how to do XYZ?” And that's led to some cool opportunities, including some of the positions and roles that I personally have now in our community and different levels of government and agencies.

Drug Topics: Absolutely. It's so amazing how much Skippack embodies the idea of community. Okay, so you've been at Skippack for 5 years. Now, my last question for you is how do you envision the future of Skippack and community pharmacy as a whole? Are there any more costumes in the future?

Amin: I think the future of pharmacy is in limbo. But as with anything that's in a crisis situation, there's always a way to get out of it. Who ever thought that we would be able to get through COVID and be able to take off masks and not have to do everything that we did during that time?

Likewise, pharmacy is in a very dangerous situation right now. Pharmacies closing 1 day at a time in different parts of the country is not okay, by any means, because there's pharmacy deserts that are created and we're removing access from patients. Unfortunately, a lot of this stuff happening is destroying the ability for people to have healthy lives. Because now when you have a patient that doesn't have a car that has to find a way to go 15 minutes away to the nearest pharmacy, and the only means of transport they have is going by bus, they might not go to get their blood pressure medication, [instead] they say, “Forget it this month, I'm not going on this bus and spending 45 minutes to go to the pharmacy and come back.”

People that are computer illiterate, they're not going to try to figure out how to call a mail order pharmacy and be on the phone, hit 17 different options, and hopefully speak to a human being, or go online and figure out how to refill their medications. They'll just say, “Forget it, I'm not going to take this medication.”

A lot of things are happening where it could go very wrong. But just like in COVID, we were at that point where things were headed in the wrong direction, people were dying by the numbers. But then all of a sudden, there was that light, where everyone's like, “Let's come together, we can come up with a solution. We're going to get through this together.” And that's where we're at right now. Whoever wants to fight through these challenges that we're facing as pharmacy owners, or as the pharmacy profession, I think if we work together, we can reverse the way pharmacy is headed right now.

And the focuses may change. The future of pharmacy may not continue traditionally, where you see a pharmacist standing behind the counter, and then technicians counting prescription pills and putting them into a bottle. And what we've seen in our lives, at least, that aspect may still be there, but it's going to be minimized in the future. We're in 2024, there's robotics, there's technologies, there's artificial intelligence, there's ChatGPT; the world is changing, whether you like it or not. So, for the owners that are in that mindset [thinking], “Oh, we're going to fill 1000 prescriptions a day and be able to survive,” you’re probably not. The reimbursements are not going to change from insurance companies. We’re at a point where no matter what we do, we can beg all we want, saying “Hey, can you please reimburse us fairly? It's not right that we lose money filling prescriptions.” Alright, okay, you can do that. But then they can offer like, “Okay, how about you offer some clinical services, or you do something different.”

You might be bleeding in 1 aspect but find another way. We're at that point where we have to adapt and change to the current times, and that's why we're focusing a lot on clinical services. The physical aspects of you giving a vaccine to somebody, it requires a hand, it requires you touching the person's arm, and then injecting. The aspect of doing a test, you give someone a nasal swab, oral swab, they do the test, you go back and you put it into the lab device; Those things cannot get replaced until maybe like 20 years from now, when you have robots giving shots. But the aspect of filling a prescription, that can easily be replaced. They're already working on technology right now, in certain stores in America—if there's cars that can operate without human beings, what can't be done?

And 1 of these models that I saw, I didn't see it in person, but I saw a video about it, you can go, and you can hit a button, the robot fills a prescription, and it brings it to the counter, and you pick it up. And if you need [counseling] at the point of sale, you can hit a button, and the pharmacist will come up on the screen.

That's the direction that we're headed in where—and I always try to encourage my students to remember that if you're doing something that a robot can replace, yeah, sure, do it, but don't put all your effort into doing that, because that's eventually going to be replaced. Utilize the technology that you have by you and then use that to do additional things like counsel people, medication synchronization. Find out why this patient is not adherent to their medications, but use the tools that you have, use the data that you get through these computer systems, and use that data to actually bring back value to the patient.

If you have a patient that stopped taking their cholesterol medication, find out why, because it might be due to their legs cramping, and offer alternative solutions. Partner with physician offices, because a big thing we learned during the pandemic is the art of collaboration. We're not in a silo as pharmacists, we're part of a group of health care professionals that can change someone's life. And if we start collaborating with other individuals, like physicians, nurses, physician assistants, and even hospital systems, that's where we can find a lot of benefit, or [added] value that we can provide to our community.

So, a lot of things are changing. Definitely there's a need for PBM [pharmacy benefit manager] reform in Pennsylvania itself. One of the House Bills is at the governor's desk, and the governor happens to be from our county in Montgomery. He knows of our pharmacy, him and his wife would actually refer patients to our pharmacy, Governor Shapiro. He's a huge fan and advocate of independent pharmacy. He knows our value and our worth, especially during the pandemic when everyone was struggling. He also realizes that, if these guys were there for you during a time of chaos, shouldn't we be there for them at a time where they're hurting? And that's the time right now for a lot of independent pharmacy owners.

We're hurting because the poor reimbursements, patients being steered to use mail order or a chain pharmacy. There's a lot of things that are happening. And I think the more noise that we make—and noise meaning we're not going to go protest and destroy things—but being a voice, advocating, using our patients’ voices, capturing their story.

I'm all about trying to get as many stories as I can from our patients and then using those stories to advocate to other people. And a lot of the things that we post on our social media, people will think that as a pharmacist, I'm probably spending most of my time actually doing things relating to pills and vaccines. Not really, I'm trying to find a way to get our stories heard in our community and at different levels. So, when we post on social media, we're sharing human interest stories of a patient whose lives we made a difference [in], a patient that might not have gotten care without that independent pharmacy. Because eventually if enough people hear about your story, when a vote comes to their desk—whether it's a state representative or federal rep—and they have the option to say, “Okay, are we going to do something to favor the independent pharmacy in this community or favor an insurer?” They'll remember that impact that you had for your community.

That’s pretty much what's going to happen is we're going to require [having] a lot of help from federal and state partners to be able to change the way things are right now. Because if it doesn't change, unfortunately, a lot more pharmacies will close. And pharmacies closing [does not only] impact our communities, but the future of our profession, young pharmacy students. There's going to be lower enrollment in pharmacy schools, because if you're a parent—and I have 2 little babies, myself—and all I see in the news is negativity about pharmacy, do I really want to send my child into a profession [where] all you see is [negativity]?

So, we need to change that as well, is that the news stories should be stories of positivity, stories of us helping our community. We're trying to change that narrative, as well as [encourage] more positive stories in the media, realizing that we do have some negative things that are happening, but twisting that so that way, hopefully, things change for the better.

Drug Topics: Definitely. It's so evident that there's obviously so much good in community pharmacy.

Amin: If you’re ever in the Pennsylvania area, please do stop by our pharmacy. It's like a museum of the last 5 years and we have 10,000 handwritten notes, patient thank you notes, because when they had 15 minutes where they were sitting in the vaccine room, or whatever school clinics that we did, we had tables set up, because I [wanted] to capture as many of these feelings as we [could]. And they would write whatever they were thinking, leave a thank you note for the volunteers or the pharmacy profession. And we have 10,000 of those handwritten notes. I haven't gone back to read them, but it's like the cutest thing, sometimes you have little kids drawing little cartoons and [writing], “Thank you so much, my shot didn't hurt.” But it's cool.

Drug Topics: Absolutely. Well, I'm definitely excited to read your book. You should—that's going to be a good 1.

Amin: Thanks so much, Lauren. Have a great day.

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